Conservation groups launch Save Our Parks Week
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Edmonton, Red Deer & Calgary: At press conferences today in Alberta’s three largest media centres, Alberta’s conservation groups announced that the government’s proposed new parks legislation is so regressive and harmful to Alberta’s parks that they are launching November 15-20 as Save Our Parks Week. They want the Bill withdrawn by the Tourism, Parks and Recreation Minister and are calling on Albertans to save their parks by emailing and faxing their MLAs and Premier Stelmach, with copies to the opposition parties, starting first thing Monday when the Bill is scheduled for debate late that day in the Legislature. The groups expect that once the public realizes passage of the Bill will pull the legal teeth out of their existing parks legislation and make it the law that protection is no longer the priority in any of their parks, such public action can stop the Bill as it did a similar one in 1999.
“If Bill 29 isn’t stopped, Save Our Parks Week will need to be an annual event throughout Alberta,” explains Dianne Pachal of Sierra Club Canada.
In the proposed legislation there is no requirement that resource development allocations such as for logging and oil and gas are to be expeditiously phased out when a new park is established. Based on the Minister-of-the-day’s opinion, the Minister can approve tourism developments such as resorts and recreation developments like off-road vehicle trails at any place in any park. That includes Wilderness Areas and Ecological Reserves, such as the Kootenay Plains, which by law under the current legisla tion are sanctuaries for wildlife and people and closed to development.
“For the Minister to claiming that the new legislation makes it simpler for the public makes no sense,” observes Dorothy Dickson of the Stewards of Alberta's Protected Areas Association. “It does make it far simpler for a Minister to approve more development in the parks, even though Albertans said they wanted more parks instead. Changing everything into one class of park will be totally confusing, whereas Wilderness Area, Ecological Reserve and Provincial Recreation Area currently give an indi cation of the level of protection and types of uses, which anyone can then supplement with specifics from the government website and maps.”
“Instead of legislation providing for protection of parks in perpetuity for wildlife, our kids and grand kids, it will provide for development at the discretion of the Minister in perpetuity,” sums up Sarah Elmeligi of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
Pending the success of Save Our Parks Week, the Bill could pass into law within a week after the Legislature resumes on the 15th. The Minister’s consultations in 2008 to develop Alberta’s Plan for Parks contained no information on the proposed legislation and its implications. There was only a web-based survey on concepts for the legislation last summer.
For more information:
Dorothy Dickson 403-347-6012, Stewards Of Alberta's Protected Areas Association (Red Deer)
Dianne Pachal 403-234-7368 (Calgary); Sam Gunsch 780 885-5624 (Edmonton), Sierra Club Canada
Sarah Elmeligi, 403-688-8641(cel), Canadian Parks & Wilderness Society
Philip Penner, 780-427-8124 Nature Alberta/ Federation of Alberta Naturalists (Edmonton)
